It’s another UCL night (evening-ish)!
BVB face off against Sabah this evening, travelling to Azerbaijan. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering why a team from Azerbaijan is playing in a tournament run by UEFA, the European footballing body. If you’re like me, you should also go look it up, because apparently a small part of Azerbaijan is indeed in Europe! I did not know that. Welcome then, Sabah, to the UCL!
Sabah FC have played in the Azerbaijani top flight since the 2018-2019 season, having been formally created as an organization is September of 2017. They played one season in the second division, and were promoted at the end of that season due to financial and licensing mistakes made by the top flight teams, as described by ESPN here. Now, after a few seasons, they have won the Azerbaijani league, and made it through the UCL knockouts to make their first appearance in Europe’s premier footballing tournament.
Dortmund on the other hand are a team from Germany that play in yellow shirts. They are coming off the back of two league draws and a loss the Bodo/Glimt in the UCL. Not a great string of results for a team that started their season with five games undefeated. They will be looking to rebound their form against Sabah and steady the ship.
Predicted Lineup
Given the team’s recent results, expect Niko Kovac to make no changes. That is his usual approach to a bad string of results—double down. Maybe we will see Joey Veerman come in, as Dortmund should expect to have lots of the ball.
Match Prediction
I’m not sure here. If you couldn’t tell, I do not know much about Sabah, but I do know Dortmund. I know that Dortmund’s attack is stuttering, and Kovac doesn’t seem to be making any tactical tweaks to fix it. If Sabah hunker down and make attacking difficult for Dortmund, we could be in for another 0-0 or 1-1.